Now in their second year, and featuring 12 categories, the awards highlight the best conservation projects, heritage attractions, country writers and finest nature reserves.

Speaking after receiving the award Adam Salmon, the centre's reserve manager, said: "We work hard to create the right habitats for the 180 bird species that come here each year, not to mention the
thriving water vole colony, bats, dragonflies and grass snakes that inhabit our 105 acres.

"One of our greatest successes is the fact that bitterns spend the winter in our reed beds, as you would normally expect to see them in places like Norfolk."

When Sir David Attenborough opened the much-loved Wetland Centre in 2000 he described it as the "ideal model for how humankind and the natural world may live side by side in the 21st century".

Coincidentally The Attenborough Nature Reserve, in Nottingham, was named the country's second favourite wildlife spot with The Farne Islands, in Northumberland, finishing in third.